Amnesty International, with support from the ICJ, will hold a parallel event, in the margins of the UN Human Rights Council’s 27th session in Geneva, on armed drones and international law, to be held on Thursday 18 September 2014 at 13:30 in room XXIV of the Palais des Nations.
Ahead of the Council Panel on the subject (scheduled for 22 September 2014), this side event aims to contribute to the debate by conveying some of the on-the-ground reality of drone attacks through a screening of the documentary film “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars”, produced by independent non-profit filmmakers Brave New Films.
The screening will be preceded by a brief discussion by civil society experts, on key legal and policy questions concerning the human rights aspects of armed drones and international law:
- Mustafa Qadri, Amnesty International (Pakistan Researcher)
- Letta Tayler, Human Rights Watch (Senior Researcher, Terrorism/Counterterrorism)
- Chris Rogers, Open Society Foundations (Program Officer, Regional Policy Initiative Afghanistan & Pakistan)
The discussion will be moderated by Alex Conte, ICJ (Director of International Law and Protection Programmes).
In “Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars”, film director Robert Greenwald investigates the impact of U.S. drone strikes at home and abroad through more than 70 separate interviews, including a former American drone operator, Pakistani families mourning loved ones and seeking legal redress, investigative journalists, and top military officials.
The film intersperses in-depth interviews with never-before-seen footage from the tribal regions in Pakistan. The film highlights the stories of 16 year old Tariq Aziz, killed by a drone a week after he participated in a public conference in Islamabad in 2011, and a school teacher, Rafiq ur Rehman, grappling with the loss of his elderly mother and the hospitalization of his children due to a drone strike last year. The film also presents candid conversations with experts like Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of State to Secretary of State Colin Powell; David Kilcullen former advisor to NATO and General Petraeus; and Vicki Divoli, former deputy legal advisor to the CIA’s counterterrorism Center.
The film is available to be viewed for free over the internet, at: http://unmanned.warcosts.com.
